Fleur-de-Marie allowed this tumult to pass away, ere she replied to the many furious voices that were raging around her. Then, casting a mild and melancholy glance at the exasperated crowd, she said to La Louve, who persisted in vociferating, "Will you dare to call us cowards again?"
"You? Oh, no, not you! I call this poor woman, whom you have so roughly treated, whom you have dragged through the mud, and whose clothes you have nearly torn off, a coward. Do you not see how she trembles, and dares not even look at you? No, no! I say again, 'tis she who is a coward, for being thus afraid of you."
Fleur-de-Marie had touched the right chord; in vain might she have appealed to their sense of justice and duty, in order to allay their bitter irritation against poor Mont Saint-Jean; the stupid or brutalised minds of the prisoners would alike have been inaccessible to her pleadings; but, by addressing herself to that sentiment of generosity, which is never wholly extinct, even in the most depraved characters, she kindled a spark of pity, that required but skilful management to fan into a flame of commiseration, instead of hatred and violence. La Louve, amid their continued murmurings against La Goualeuse and her protégée, felt, and confessed, that their conduct had been both unwomanly and cowardly.
Fleur-de-Marie would not carry her first triumph too far. She contented herself with merely saying:
"Surely, if this poor creature, whom you call yours, to tease, to torment, to ill-use,—in fact, your souffre douleur,—be not worthy of your pity, her infant has done nothing to offend you. Did you forget, when striking the mother, that the unborn babe might suffer from your blows? And when she besought your mercy, 'twas not for herself, but her child. When she craves of you a morsel of bread, if, indeed, you have it to spare, 'tis not to satisfy her own hunger she begs it, but that her infant may live; and when, with streaming eyes, she implored of you to spare the few rags she had with so much difficulty collected together, it arose from a mother's love for that unseen treasure her heart so loves and prizes. This poor little patchwork cap, and the pieces of old mattresses she has so awkwardly sewed together, no doubt appear to you fit objects of mirth; but, for my own part, I feel far more inclined to cry than to laugh at seeing the poor creature's instinctive attempts to provide for her babe. So, if you laugh at Mont Saint-Jean, let me come in for my share of your ridicule."
Not the faintest attempt at a smile appeared on any countenance, and La Louve continued, with fixed gaze, to contemplate the little cap she still held in her hand.
"I know very well," said Fleur-de-Marie, drying her eyes with the back of her white and delicate hand,—"I know very well that you are not really ill-natured or cruel, and that you merely torment Mont Saint-Jean from thoughtlessness. But consider that she and her infant are one. If she held it in her arms, not only would you carefully avoid doing it the least injury, but I am quite sure, if it were cold, you would even take from your own garments to cover it. Would not you, La Louve? Oh, I know you would, every one of you!"
"To be sure we would,—every one pities a tender baby."
"That is quite natural."
"And if it cried with hunger, you would take the bread from your own mouth to feed it with. Would not you, La Louve?"